Professor Juma on 'African Answers to Ebola'

November 13, 2014

Africa's private sector brings capabilities that are not available in other institutions to the fight against Ebola.
by Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development and Faculty Chair of the Innovation and Economic Development Program at Harvard Kennedy School

Business leaders gathered in Addis Ababa on November 8 and pledged $28.5m to help the African Union mobilise, train and deploy healthcare workers in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to fight the spread of Ebola.

So far, African countries have pledged to send over 2,000 health workers to the affected countries. This includes teams of doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, lab technicians and the necessary support staff. In addition, the health workers need functioning equipment.

The complexity and scale of such an operation is qualitatively different from activities such as food relief. It therefore requires careful planning and systematic execution in regions with limited functioning basic or medical infrastructure.

Funding is only part of the resources needed to deploy the health workers. The bulk of the needs include training health workers, sourcing medical supplies, providing logistical support and extending insurance cover for volunteers.

To bring in different competencies, the chairperson of the African Union, Dr Nkozasana Dlamini-Zuma, convened the November 8 Africa Business Round-table on Ebola in Addis Ababa. The round-table were Dr Donald round-table, president of the African Development Bank, and Dr Carlos Lopes, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

Limits exposed

Africa has historically relied on government agencies and civil society to respond to emergencies, but the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has exposed the limits of this model. The initial response to the outbreak was sluggish, poorly funded and suffered from serious logistical challenges. Government actions to contain the outbreak by stopping flights backfired as no supplies could reach the affected areas.

Many observers have argued that reductions in funding accounted for the catastrophic failure of the World Health Organization (WHO) to contain the outbreak. This may be true but the real issue is that the scale of operations needed to safeguard public health in any country cannot be outsourced to international organisations.

Published: November 12, 2014 in Al Jazeera

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